Former Alberta deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk said the $20,000 phone bill he racked up while vacationing was due to a potentially violent family dispute faced by a fellow cabinet minister.

Lukaszuk, now a Conservative leadership candidate, says a cabinet member called him while he was on a personal vacation in Poland in October 2012.

Lukaszuk told CBC News the "very distressed" cabinet member was facing potential danger and that he wanted to remain on the line until police arrived.

“I received a frantic call directly from a cabinet minister, direct to my cellphone, saying: ‘I’m in danger, I may be attacked and police are coming here, what should I do?’ Already the bill is racking up,” Lukaszuk told the National Post Wednesday.

"This was an urgent personal matter for the minister in question," he told the CBC, adding the PC Party should pay the bill.

"There might be political fallout, but it is not government business. It is party business. It is political business."

Lukaszuk's two opponents — Jim Prentice and Ric McIver — have denied involvement in leaking the bill to The Sun, but police say they are investigating because a Calgary resident's identity was fraudulently used to send the bill.